The dialogue clearly points out in "Peak Performance" that the E-D's sensors are tracking an incoming Ferengi warship at Warp 5 and not that it had just dropped out of warp.

Then when, exactly, did the Ferengi ship drop out of warp?

There are random explosions and noises occurring on the bridge. I couldn't say that I heard a "warp pulse" when he orders "Engage".

I hear it pretty clearly. And I've always found it funny, ever since I was a little kid, because it always inevitably leads me to wonder about the whole "no sound in space" thing and to realize that the sound effects we hear in the external shots can't possibly really exist, but then again neither does the background music either, so it's all just stage decoration anyway and therefore what Picard is "hearing" is his own visualization of what's happening outside the ship.

Since you point to the "Nemesis" example then we can tell a bridge can recover and still fight effectively even with a hole in the bridge.

Yes, assuming the ship the bridge is attached to is still in something resembling fighting shape by the time those officers have had time to recover. In this case, they did not: a handful of seconds after Stargazer opened fire, the Ferengi ship was an expanding debris cloud.

Yes, on dramatic announcement before immediately exploding.

"Immediately" is relatively rare. It took the Saratoga a full two minutes to blow its warp core, and the first Defiant took slightly longer after the Breen zapped it with the energy dampener. The Valiant was shot to pieces by a Jem'hadar battleship, but still managed to avoid exploding until Jake and Nog could escape.

And even the relatively quick destruction of the Odyssey shows a distinct time delay between the collision and the actual explosion of the ship... time enough for one final poorly-aimed phaser blast.

No, dying last weapons fire on the wrong target after it is considered destroyed. Unless you have an example of this?

Not the WRONG target, but Lursa and Be'tor managed to trigger a warp core breach before the Enterprise destroyed them with a photon torpedo. If they had done slightly more damage to the engineering section, Enterprise might have exploded only a few seconds after launching that torpedo.

Or they may need more since we were only dealing with their tractor beam.

Or they may need less. Again, we don't know one way or the other; it's a moot point.

You asked about why fire at both targets (as a counter). If for example in "Peak Performance" the E-D fired at both the Stargazer and the trick Warbird the ruse would've been over.

The ruse was over instantly: Burke immediately realized the warbird was a fake, and Picard figured it out seconds later when Hathaway ignored the warbird and opened fire on them.

It tells us that fire control systems can fire at near and far targets.

It tells us that DS9's fire control system can do this. That doesn't help us much, since DS9 can do MANY things a normal starship cannot do (like simultaneously manage twelve different torpedo launchers and rotary phaser launchers, simultaneously targeting entire formations of ships). And DS9 is a large stationary platform with ALOT of sensor coverage and a potentially huge number of independent sensor/tracking/targeting stations. Each individual weapons emplacement could easily be managed by a single starship class fire control center.

Fair enough. Then it looks like Ferengi moved away after the 2nd attack and although appearing that they were coming back for the kill according to dialogue the Ferengi at that moment was only facing them but not moving much.

Yeah. Probably getting another sensor bearing to line up their next run.

Wow, that is inline with the description of the battle. Although given how much time it took between requesting a sensor bearing and receiving the pulse factored in with traveling at Warp 9 for 5-6 seconds the sensors must've been FTL. If they were LS-only the sensor pulse would've taken what, an hour to come back?

Unless they were using passive sensors: either reading the emissions from the Ferengi ship itself, or reading the emissions from the Ferengi's sensor beam. There's still the fact that we're not entirely sure how fast warp 9 actually is inside of a solar system; if it's the TVH warp 9 or the "Bloodlines" warp 9 or something in between (or worse, the Elaan of Troyus warp 9 which may or may not even be an FTL velocity).

Covered this also. I guess we'll just have to disagree. STL sensors wouldn't work when the Ferengi attacked the Stargazer at Warp 2.

Yes they would if both ships were traveling at the same speed.

Let's see. Both ships are FTL. Stargazer is ahead at Warp 2. Ferengi is following Stargazer's light trail but only has LS sensors. It has no idea what is in front of that light trail. It can't tell that it has overrun Stargazer until it either crashed into it or overshot it.

Incorrect. You can clearly see the END of the trail ahead of you, though you cannot as clearly see the actual object leaving that trail (as the distance and relative velocity decrease, that quickly changes, though). Working out the other ship's course and speed is simple arithmetic; working out its exact location with enough accuracy to get a firing solution is potentially more complicated, but aided by the fact that once you get a rough estimate of where he is and how fast he's going, you can place yourself in new relative position, match his velocity, and then get his EXACT position using standard sensors.

It wouldn't be a totally simple maneuver, in fact it's probably a basic combat maneuver that any good helmsman probably spends a lot of time practicing. Covered in the academy under "basic pursuit tactics."

How does it get its STL weapons on target to Stargazer? Not from a chasing position.

Actually, ONLY from a chasing position. Once you're behind them you can match their warp factor and then you're both stationary in the same co-moving reference frame

If it were the same position the flight time of the Stargazer would've been 5 seconds instead of 1.5 seconds.

It likely WAS 5 seconds. I repeat: what WE saw on the viewer is obviously different from what actually occurred (given the distant image of Stargazer can't really be there). The one and a half seconds of deceleration we see would only be the ending portion of the Stargazer's flight, not the entire maneuver.

What the Ferengi would've seen was another ship magically appearing out of no where without any of the warp light streaks.

But there WOULD be the warp streaks, as there ALWAYS are whenever a starship drops out of warp. They may not have understood what they were seeing and been momentarily confused, or -- far more likely -- they didn't have more than half a second to react before Stargazer's fussilade smashed through their shields.

Again, that doesn't make sense. If it were truly an issue of FTL ship vs LS sensors:

1. Stargazer would immediately appear,
2. followed by the warp streaks catching up
3. and then the warp engine flash kicking into Warp 9 and the old image disappearing.

In almost ANY case, the warp flash at the old image doesn't make logical sense. If the putative FTL sensors detected the warp flash, they would have known instantly that Stargazer was coming at them; more importantly, they would have been able to work out Stargazer's final position without having to scan for a sudden compression of interstellar gas (you ca scan for barely-detectable trace gases but you can't scan for a 200,000 ton slab of metal speeding towards you?).

Being in order does not suggest LS or STL sensors but real-time FTL sensors with a weakness against sudden Warp 9 hops.

Actually it suggests NEITHER of those things, given the still-present need to scan for a sudden gas compression.

That looks and sounds like the ship "streak" was still at warp...

It wasn't. Simple math fails that test: it takes Voyager a non-zero number of frames to cover that distance even as a streak, which means it's considerably below FTL velocity in that scene (unless, of course, ILM's cinematography is working at FTL too).

Do ships "streak" at STL since you're suggesting that "The acceleration/deceleration phase is visible to STL sensors" while they are still STL. (italics mine).

Yes. That's the sudden acceleration of the warp engines that pushes them through STL velocity through the warp barrier. In almost all cases, the "jump to warp" effect occurs BEFORE the flash in the distance as the ship breaks the light barrier (FX artists have used this since TMP; it's meant to be analogous to a sonic boom).

As to jumping to warp, those warp streaks/light trails (when visible) indicate the ship is at warp.

See above. The flash means lightspeed; the streaks occur first, with the onset of "warp 1" and above occurring at the flash.

There would be no way in your premise for the STL sensors to see a ship while she's at warp...

Then what are WE seeing? ILM's cameras are FTL too?

You said, "Fed a targeting solution ahead of time." That isn't possible in the sequence given. My description of a phaser lock is for real-time targeting.

Then your description is wrong, since Picard acquired the phaser lock BEFORE he went to warp. Something like this is implied in what Riker tells Sito Jaxa during a "The Lower Decks": "Let the locking relay float until the actual order to fire is given." That way she won't have to reestablish a phaser lock when the ship changes course (and, presumably, position). Vigo probably did the same thing on Stargazer and was therefore able to get a realtime fix the instant they were back at sublight velocity.

That's a possibility but unlikely. I just prefer Riker's dialogue that they simply fired on the wrong target.

Why did Tom put Voyager to warp when the alien bioship had knocked them into a spin?

And if he was told to fire he'd lock onto the ship that actually fired at him instead of the more distant ship which by now would've likely disappeared

And I'm sure Tom would have programmed an actual escape course into his helm console instead of just crawling up to it and pressing the "engage" button.

None as the Ferengi ship would've exploded by now.

It will, in about three seconds. The question stands: there's a flash of light and suddenly your ship is hit by a massive barrage of phaser fire. Your stunned weapons officer stabs a button. What target did he just fire at?

How do you match velocities? You're following a light trail and you have no idea what is in front of you or the light trail.

You can see the light trail and you can see where it ends. You just close on that position and dial down your velocity until the light trail stops being a trail and resolves itself into a ship (because that's all the light trail actually is: the elongated distorted image of the ship you're following).

Are you sure you want to use that example? Unless you want to use your example to prove that the Ferengi would have no problem targeting the correct opponent since in "Nemesis"...

... IF Picard gave them half a minute to catch their breath and recover from the shock of having their bridge decompressed (as Shinzon did). It's pretty clear he did NOT do this, and so the example works just fine.

Yeah, he had a HUGE grudge against the Borg. I'd imagine he wouldn't like the Ferengi either. But, he managed to stay an effective Captain from "BOBW" to "First Contact".

Arguably, Bok managed to stay pretty effective in the nine years since the death of his son. That's the equivalency you're missing: Bok isn't trying to murder Picard, just hurt him in the same way HE was hurt.

I rule out that possibility because there are enough episodes in TNG that have a sublight E-D detecting an incoming Warp speed ship which indicate FTL sensors. Heck there are also episodes where a ship (or ships) being chased KNOW that they are being chased by other ships at Warp and if they were limited to LS/STL sensors that would be impossible.

Here's a math problem for you: if you're moving through space at warp nine, and you're being chased by another ship at warp nine, what is the relative velocity between your two ships?